yeah, seriously. a different topic for a different thread, but most Jews I know have a very ambiguous relationship to their own whiteness, let alone to this structure of WASPness.
― Mordy, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:27 (fourteen years ago) link
huh - these guys play up the WASP-signifiers nonstop. just cause they aren't *technically* WASPs doesn't mean that that word has no place in a discussion of them.
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:34 (fourteen years ago) link
thats uhhhh not the point
― max, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:38 (fourteen years ago) link
what's uhhhh the point then
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:39 (fourteen years ago) link
i doubt dude is mad because WASP-ness is "in a discussion."
i get the sense that he is a little bit annoyed that they are described, frequently, as some kind of WASP bad.
― max, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:42 (fourteen years ago) link
see the distinction?
they've done everything in their power to come off as a WASP band, so if they're annoyed that people call them a WASP band, well, maybe they should stop wearing polo shirts and singing about cape cod.
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:45 (fourteen years ago) link
He keeps patting himself on the back for using upper-class signifiers that people use to leap to conclusions about them or their music, so that's the price of the game he's playing tbh. (xpost)
― some dude, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:45 (fourteen years ago) link
they've done everything in their power to come off as a WASP band,
Jews don't wear Izod?
― Blue Fucks Like Ben Nelson (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2010 19:46 (fourteen years ago) link
anyway I came up with this fascinating google search result when researching this:
http://www.strmfrnt.org/forum/showthread.php?p=7726207
MOD NOTE: linking to this site is an incredibly stupid idea that is likely to get you tempbanned. Stop it.
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:46 (fourteen years ago) link
oh jesus fucking christ
― call all destroyer, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:47 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hwE0slNd3Y
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:48 (fourteen years ago) link
hey dudes wasn't there always a rule about googleproofing st0rmfr0nt because you don't want them to see track backs and no one wanted an invasion of those dudes?
― Dr. Goon Medicine Woman (M@tt He1ges0n), Friday, 29 January 2010 19:50 (fourteen years ago) link
um if there was a mod can feel free to googleproof that
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:51 (fourteen years ago) link
lol honestly was not sure if it's an innocent mistake or an attempted thread-nuke
― da croupier, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:52 (fourteen years ago) link
frankly I think their views would be v. interesting in this thread
+ maybe the top 50 of 2009 thread, where race will play an imp. factor in the arguments over who was right
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:54 (fourteen years ago) link
no
― Dr. Goon Medicine Woman (M@tt He1ges0n), Friday, 29 January 2010 19:54 (fourteen years ago) link
― iatee, Friday, January 29, 2010 2:45 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― some dude, Friday, January 29, 2010 2:45 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark
anyways, back to the discussion--i think the issue with this is that WASPness is barely even a living culture these days and critics are kinda ignorant about how they throw it around w/r/t this band. so when some reviewer is like "hey wow look at these white WASP kids who went to Columbia" i don't see what is wrong w/ezra gently correcting peoples dumb preconceived notions.
― call all destroyer, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:56 (fourteen years ago) link
iatee quit while you're behind
^^^ referring to me being jewish I suppose
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:57 (fourteen years ago) link
when I think columbia I think rich jewish kids, so yeah I guess WASP=columbia is a lazy and wrong association but that might not have anything to do with vampire weekend
― iatee, Friday, 29 January 2010 19:58 (fourteen years ago) link
wtf is the "balaclava" thing a reference to?
― ben bernankles (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 29 January 2010 20:44 (fourteen years ago) link
it's what ezra calls his penis
― that sex version of "blue thunder." (Mr. Que), Friday, 29 January 2010 20:45 (fourteen years ago) link
― ben bernankles (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, January 29, 2010 2:44 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark
lol @ u
― Goon's Anatomy (J0rdan S.), Friday, 29 January 2010 20:45 (fourteen years ago) link
its a reference to search engine "google"
― max, Friday, 29 January 2010 20:46 (fourteen years ago) link
haha i've been wanting to ask that the whole time but was too embarrassed cuz everyone seemed to know what it was...basically a fancy ski mask, so google sez i guess. or a city in the ukraine
― Dr. Goon Medicine Woman (M@tt He1ges0n), Friday, 29 January 2010 21:18 (fourteen years ago) link
balaclava horchata not even the most wtf lyric on the record:
when I was 17/I had wrists like steel
― I think ur a probotector (cozen), Friday, 29 January 2010 21:20 (fourteen years ago) link
ew ezra
― I think ur a probotector (cozen), Friday, 29 January 2010 21:21 (fourteen years ago) link
haha yeah that lyric...
― Goon's Anatomy (J0rdan S.), Friday, 29 January 2010 21:22 (fourteen years ago) link
another stellar post over at nabisco's tumblr, fyi
― ksh, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:25 (fourteen years ago) link
basically a fancy ski mask, so google sez i guess. or a city in the ukraine
Both:
The name "balaclava" comes from the town of Balaklava, near Sevastopol in Crimea, Ukraine. During the Crimean War, knitted balaclavas were sent over to the British troops to help protect them from the bitter cold weather. They are traditionally knitted from wool, and can be rolled up into a hat to cover just the crown of the head.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:28 (fourteen years ago) link
i posted that more for the suggestion that rappers never caught any flak for homophobic lyrics, and certainly none on the level of the huge protests at his balaclava lyric. plus getting stick for privilege and responding without irony, "what about the fucking blacks?"
hey m@tt, the city, also famous battle, charge of light brigade, tennyson all that
xpost
― zvookster, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:30 (fourteen years ago) link
I think "balaclava" is British slang. Like "anorak." That's the only place I'd ever heard it used prior to VW.
― Hoisin Murphy (jaymc), Friday, 29 January 2010 21:30 (fourteen years ago) link
also a balaclava is NAGL
thx y'all i have now officially learned something today.
also that other thing is a mexican beverage!
― i get mines the fast way, the balaclava way (M@tt He1ges0n), Friday, 29 January 2010 21:31 (fourteen years ago) link
i feel the "we're not WASPS" is a convenient dodge for them. people throwing around that term are lazy (and technically wrong), but it is also clearly just being used as a term to stand-in in for rich & privileged, i don't think most people using it are like "wow, wonder if ezra is presbyterian or episcopalian" so pointing out "hey, dudes i'm jewish" isn't really addressing what people are finding annoying.
― velko, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:31 (fourteen years ago) link
horchata is a delicious, delicious drink. jesus christ, i wish i had one right now. if you're ever in hermosa beach, ca, go to La Penita for a godly horchata, friends.
― tylerw, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:33 (fourteen years ago) link
they are the well-educated sons of well-off professionals who got in to good schools, and there, got to see a whole other level of crazy privilege and wealth, far above themselves. there's a lot of intra-elite observation/discomfort/sniping going on in these records. what they 'are' and what they are looking at aren't exactly the same thing, class-wise
― goole, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:41 (fourteen years ago) link
that would be interesting if it was interesting.
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, 29 January 2010 21:50 (fourteen years ago) link
i mean, i'm sure there's some kind of smart thing to say about all that that hasn't been said by all the writers before them that have sort of observed the same things. but asserting that that's what they're doing doesn't mean they're doing it well.
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, 29 January 2010 21:52 (fourteen years ago) link
no i guess it doesn't?
― goole, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:53 (fourteen years ago) link
upper middle-class anxiety in the presence of old money
― velko, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:53 (fourteen years ago) link
tips my goal in posting is not to try to get you to like a band
xp yeah and especially when the old money girls are taking a term off to bus around guatemala
― goole, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Rostam is talking about nabisco's post on the twitter: http://twitter.com/matsoR
― ksh, Friday, 29 January 2010 21:57 (fourteen years ago) link
And apparently talking to the "Chicago Reader music editor"
http://twitter.com/matsoR/status/8184054742
shamelessly trying to curry favor with whiney
― zvookster, Friday, 29 January 2010 22:01 (fourteen years ago) link
and i'm not tryin to get anyone to dislike them. just i think there's a fair amount of suspect stuff said in re v.w., both in terms of how much all their "class" stuff really registers (it feels to me like something heavily inflated by people looking for something to chatter about) and in terms of what they're doing musically. i accept that people like it, that's fine and all, but the critical cases made for them seem weirdly detached to me from the experience of actually listening to them. they are a frail frame on which to hang all this rhetoric. imo.
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, 29 January 2010 22:05 (fourteen years ago) link
well true enough, my post above was speaking against the hopperish idea that VW is "just a band of wasps stealing music from africa so they can sing about being rich"
― goole, Friday, 29 January 2010 22:16 (fourteen years ago) link
oh hahahaha I am listening to "A Punk" now and did not realize that THIS was THAT song
I don't mind these guys after all
― struck through in my prime (HI DERE), Friday, 29 January 2010 22:18 (fourteen years ago) link
Btw, I think goole is OTM about them being upper-middle-class looking at old wealth, and I think that's why Ezra being Jewish (and I guess the other guy being Persian) is important. There's a whole history of Jewish wealth contending with old WASP money, and I believe that's definitely running through what's going on here, even if it's not explicit. They're also one of the first generations of wealthy Jews (or their parents are, most likely) who don't seriously have to deal with things like restricted country clubs, quotas at Ivy's, etc.
― Mordy, Friday, 29 January 2010 22:25 (fourteen years ago) link